She rose when Varian appeared, with a brave, sad, little smile more poignant than tears would have been. Varian repressed a self-indulgent urge to hug Cleiti. Instead she explained the necessity for the report.
“I can do it while Obir’s busy,” Cleiti said, holding the cassette with curious awkwardness. “I’ll have no trouble remembering everything exactly as it happened. After all, for me, it was only the week before last.”
Varian managed to murmur something appropriate, catching Godheir’s amused wink, as she turned away. Rain still lashed down and the screen of vine waved with erratic vitality in the squally winds. The vine should be cut down now, she thought. The screen’s purpose had been accomplished. She wished hers could and Ireta’s weather was frustrating. So … she’d work on that blasted report until the rain abated.
“You’ve probably got a lot to do, lassie,” Godheir said, hearing her sigh of exasperation. He took a bulbous object from his thigh pocket and a small pouch from another. “I’ll just blow a cloud of my own.” Varian recognized the artifact as a tobacco pipe. “Not that I could smell anything in this atmosphere. Nor will I be polluting it!” He chuckled as he settled himself on another stool. “Half the pleasure of smoking a pipe is the smell of the tobacco.”
“What’s the other half?”
“The pure relaxation of fussing with a pipe.”
Varian watched the process for a moment. “It looks complicated.”
96
Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet II – The Survivors Then she thanked him once again for all his courtesies. “Would you give me a shout when the rain stops, Captain?”
“My pleasure!”
It could have been imagination, but Varian did think, as she returned to the shuttle, that she could smell the aroma which rose from the captain’s pipe.
As Varian organized her recollections of the events leading up to the mutiny, she envied Cleiti her innocence of the “week before last”. Varian made copious notes, additions, and changes until she was sure she had events in order. She made no comments, such as her initial suspicions about the heavyworlders’ unsavory activities of that fateful rest day, for the mutiny was an undeniable fact, emphatically substantiated by the time gap between the two groups. She listened carefully to the replay of her report, aware that she could not erase now. She added a few brief explanations to her remarks. Then she strode to the shuttle iris and looked out toward the cave entrance.
Cleiti, Godheir, and Obir were seated in a companionable group about the fire, the captain’s pipe still sending gray blue plumes of smoke to waft about in vagrant puffs of wind. No question of it, Varian thought. She could smell the tobacco above the usual pungency’s. When she saw Varian, Cleiti brought over her cassette.
“Captain Godheir seems to know all about the mutiny, Varian,” she said in a low voice, her eyes round with surprise. “Is it all right to talk about what happened? Or are details classified?”
“You can talk about it all you want, Cleiti,” Varian replied, hoping discussion might restore the unnaturally subdued child to her former ebullience. Damn Paskutti and Tardma for the shock they had given the child: a shock undiminished in Cleiti’s memories of the “week before last.”
“Captain Godheir said he’s never talked with a person who’d been mutinied before.”
“It’s not something that happens frequently, Cleiti. He’s had our official report, but I think he might be interested in your reactions. But don’t talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Cleiti considered pensively. Then, with a slightly less strained smile, added, “Yes, I think I’d like to tell the Captain and Obir. They both listen so politely. They say,” and the smile betrayed a touch of Cleiti’s old impishness, “that it’s because I’m older than they are.” She rejoined the men at the fire.
Varian was still muttering imprecations against the heavyworlders when Lunzie appeared with her record cassette.
“Isn’t Cleiti abnormally quiet, Lunzie?”
“All elements considered, not too much so. Part of it’s due to the restoration, and part to delayed reaction. That’s why I want to keep everyone as busy as possible. Gives ’em less time to worry and think.”